Public Likely To Decide

House Speaker Jim Wright is in a lot of trouble. Is the trouble pay back for what Democrats did to Republican John Tower, the failed nominee for secretary of defense? Partly yes, and partly no.

Certainly, Republicans are smacking their lips over Wright's problems, especially after having suffered through attacks on Tower, former Attorney General Ed Meese and others.

But the House ethics committee is not an exclusively Republican body; it has Democrats, too, and committee members were unanimous in finding reason to believe Wright violated some 69 ethics rules. Moreover, the group's language in a written report on the findings was unusually harsh. "The word `scheme' stands out," said one Democrat of the committee's report.

So Wright's problems are not only substantial, they are mainly of his own making. It is not for nothing that the committee's report says the speaker "failed in his duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid even the appearance of impropriety." The problem is that in Congress, there is no end to the appearance of impropriety.

Especially with regard to honoraria - the currently legal and therefore acceptable method by which special interest groups reward congressmen - many of Wright's colleagues are on some pretty shaky ethical ground themselves. As North Carolina Sen. Terry Sanford noted on the Senate floor last week, honoraria in the last five years have allowed senators to personally divy up $9 million, while their peers on the House side were taking in some $15 million.

One of Wright's big sins, supposedly, is that he skirted the contribution limits by getting his fans to pay for copies of his book instead of paying him fees. That's wrong, yes, but the point is some of the people who will decide how seriously to regard that sin would themselves make poor targets for scrutiny.

Admittedly, Wright's problems are far more serious than honoraria. But whether he goes or stays - conceivably he could survive as speaker - is likely to depend less on his standing among House members than on public reaction to him.

If the public comes to view him as the embodiment of an unethical politician and demands his ouster, the embattled Texan will have as much chance of remaining as Congress did of getting its pay raise.